Demonstrators showed support for DACA in San Diego on June 18, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration had canceled the program improperly.
Photo: sandy huffaker/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON—A federal court in Maryland ordered the Trump administration on Friday to begin accepting new applications to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, ending weeks of uncertainty over whether the government would restart the policy after the Supreme Court ruled it was canceled improperly.
Judge Paul Grimm of the District Court of Maryland wrote that, in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, “the policy is restored” to the way it operated before the Trump administration attempted to end it in September 2017.
For several weeks since the June 18 Supreme Court decision, immigration lawyers had begun submitting applications for the program on behalf of young unauthorized immigrants, often called Dreamers, who weren’t eligible to apply a few years ago.
About 66,000 young immigrants would have become eligible applicants had the program continued during the past few years, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.
This week, several lawyers reported receiving rejection notices on new applications. In a statement Friday before the federal court’s ruling, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—the agency that handles DACA applications—said it had rejected those applications for clerical errors, such as omitting a signature or paying the wrong application fee.
A spokesman for the agency said the rejection notices didn’t indicate the correct reason applications had been rejected. “USCIS is working to correct future notices,” he said.
The agency didn’t respond to a request for further comment after the Friday ruling.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration acted arbitrarily when it moved to end DACA, as it failed to give adequate reasons for its decision. While the case was pending, the government continued to accept renewals from existing DACA recipients, though it stopped accepting new applications. It also stopped granting requests from recipients to leave the country—without the government’s permission, a DACA recipient who leaves the country is barred from returning.
Araceli Martínez-Olguín, supervising attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which brought one of the lawsuits that reached the high court, said the Supreme Court’s ruling had already compelled USCIS to fully restart the program, but added, “we all know the government has been dragging its feet.”
The order could open a window for protections for immigrants who were too young to apply in September 2017. Under the program’s terms, an applicant must be at least 16 years old to apply.
But President Trump and his immigration advisers have sent numerous signals they plan to end the program again, following the proper legal procedure the Supreme Court laid out.
On a trip to Arizona last month, Mr. Trump said his administration would move again to cancel the program but “we’ll work it out with DACA.” Asked if he had a message for recipients, he said: “Put your chin up. Good things are going to happen.”
Write to Michelle Hackman at Michelle.Hackman@wsj.com
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